Markk wrote:I agree with what you are saying for the most part, what I disagree with, if I am understand your question correctly is that I somehow "...why you feel that doing this is more important than establishing principles you, as an individual, adhere to and hold members of all parties to independent of partisan politics?"
My question is another way of asking why you think the atmosphere in modern politics prevents you, Markk, from choosing principle over partisanship?
I believe we should be able to sift through the garbage and accept what is good and bad about a political figure, which I think I have done that with Trump over and over again here, in a pragmatist-ic context. In other words he can be a very un-presidential egotistical baby, yet he is doing some very good things for our country. Would you agree? Why, why not?
There are a couple of areas where I think we'll need to see how they play out to rightly judge Trump that could turn out to be net positives for the US as well as the world largely. Those include the potential for real breakthroughs with North Korea that probably wouldn't be possible with any other US presidential candidate we've seen in the last thirty years and the Kim's still in power. So much of US policy seems to have included power shifts in NK being necessary for change. Maybe, just maybe, Trump and Kim will do a strange dance the ultimate results in a denuclearized Korean peninsula. That would be a major positive and maybe we'll drunken style kung fu our way to something I did not think possible. I've been very vocal on the board in viewing Trump's thin skin and blustering moving the potential he would use nuclear weapons scarily more probable - and still view this as a problem with Trump - he and Kim are so unpredictable that a positive outcome seems possible. If that ends up being how it plays out, kudos to him.
Maybe, just maybe, his trade war with China will help change a few things for the better, while I'm sure there will also be long term negatives. I suspect this one will be a mixed bag.
But in other places people want to give him credit, I tend to be very skeptical it will play out well such as in regards to the economy. I've mentioned elsewhere that I share the view of many economists that Trump is behaving like a predatory venture capitalist with the US economy. He's loading us up with debt to make the economy burn unsustainably hot while doing long-term damage. He managed to interfere with the one thing I thought might have been a positive outcome when Republicans took full control in 2016. That being, I had thought, "At least they'll swing the pendulum of public spending the opposite direction so the national debt load comes down." I don't know how else to say it other than I view what many see as his biggest victory as his setting a ticking time bomb off under all of us that he will walk away from in 2020...and probably blame Democrats for even thought it takes only the most basic understanding of macroeconomics to see what's going on if one steps back and looks past the immediate.
I don't like how he treats our allies, or how he blatantly is cowed by Putin. Maybe even though he is playing the heel on the world stage, the outcome overall will be something positive though I'm not sure what that will look like. Is a more isolated, self-contained and less anglo EU going to be bad, good or indifferent in the course of world history? Don't know.
Anyway, I suspect there are may places where we are too close to justly judge but others where we are choosing to not step back and assess where the results are obvious, preventable, and more than just Trump's fault. That said, there aren't many places I think he's likely to have proved to be good for the US.
And I would love to hear your definition of what a "far left person is"...Are you saying Kevin G. would not be considered far left, and Ajax far right? I would disagree all the way to my grave on that one.
I think you are confusing passion and extreme allegiance with ideology. Being "far left" is not a comment about how intensely a person adheres to their ideological views. It's a comment about what they believe is the best form of social order. And to be on the far left side of the spectrum means a person is essentially a legitimate, hardcore communist. Stalinist state-level communism is in the category but still slightly right of being a true communist who believes government really shouldn't exist. It's easy for people to make statements that are pro-democracy that are exactly the same as communism. So that can be a bit weird in US politics. Does Kevin Graham believe the US government should be dissolved and people govern themselves in a true, collectivist manner? I haven't seen that in his posts.
Now, the far right is the opposite of this view of total, collectivist non-hierarchical social ordering. It's all about hierarchies and authorities. The far right is essentially defined by viewing the ideal social order as one with a authoritarian leader, and stratification in society. Does that sound like something Ajax is for? I guess you don't think so. I think ajax says things that are very much in line with the far right, ideologically speaking. But I also think he'd feel uncomfortable with it being laid out naked in front of him and his taking ownership of it. He wavers in his views between a sort of anti-government sentiment that isn't really far right. It's...confused.
I think folks like you and Ceeboo are in a weird place on the spectrum which plays into being susceptible to seeing democrats as being far left. It comes from having a religious basis for your views that you use to paint society with that is a mix of authoritarianism when it comes to moral views and anti-cultural liberalism on the hand, and a form of collectivist views when it comes to those who you see as fellows. And examining the nature of that boundary is a bit like try to confirm both the position and momentum of an electron: focusing on one side puts the other into a realm of unknowability that muddies the discussion if one tries to bounce back and forth arguing specifics.
Most of the posters on the board are clustered around middle third of the spectrum and hold positions to the left or right depending on the issue. subbie appears to be an anarchist with no ideological view he is willing to honor, but he's the exception there.